Motivated for the Cause

In the arts, there is a certain idea, sometimes called the cult of youth, which states that much of the great art, music and literature is created by youth. In his early 20 s, Robert Pearson was aware of such thought and did a study of exactly why people might say such a thing. The idea generally says there is much wrong with civilization so we should listen to the ideas of youth. Pearson realized that he was growing older and would possibly outgrow some of his youthful idealism, so he wanted to write a book that contained it all. The book was finished in 1985 when he had just turned 22. Pearson was a precocious reader in the years leading up to the completion of his book. Every year had a new reading fad, starting out with the usual things children are interested in. But by the time he was 16, he was reading abstract philosophers and writing his own thoughts on the Gaia philosophy, the idea that the earth is actually a huge organism. He also read poets and spiritual writers, and tried to keep up with the intellectuals in the public eye. The book he finished when he was 22, which he called Motivated for the Cause, contained earlier poems and prose writings put into one literary form. It is written in the rare literary form known as the anti-novel, in a style like James Joyce s odd books Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake. Motivated for the Cause, was called a work of genius by a local painter, given praise by the few people who read it at that time, and excerpts from it read in coffee houses by a poet living 3000 miles away from Pearson, but it largely languished unpublished for 22 years. The book tries to wake the reader up to see the possibilities in life. It does this by examining various ways of looking at why we are here in the first place inter-spliced with surrealistic and heavenly poetic prose to emphasize the best in life. The basic plot of the book is that the main character, the narrator s voice, is trying to unify his basic spiritual faith, with being an artist and trying to live life to the fullest. In the book the idea that the earth is an organism, what is commonly referred to as the Gaia idea, is described but he never leaves the reader to think this should be final pessimistic way of looking at human life. The book looks at the negative implications of the idea that we may not be as high a creation as we would like to believe. When thinking of republishing the book the author realized that some readers might take these sections in the wrong way. There are those who hold negative or materialistic views, and such movies as The Matrix and other recent movies play off this theme. The author decided to keep such sections in the book because he believes the Gaia idea helps us see the connectivity of human life with the environment. The book leaves one with feeling that to seriously hurt any part of the earth consciously or unnecessarily is like hurting the cells of our own body.

R.S. Pearson has been writing and publishing for over 20 years. He received his BA in English composition in 1987, and started ParaMind Brainstorming Software in 1992. A long time student of spirituality and psychology, Pearson's works seek to identify the pure spiritual drive that Christ said was "helping widows and orphans in their distress," while overcoming the common judgmental nature which often overcomes people's spiritual pursuits. His two recent books on hyperreligiosity and hallucinations in religious practice key in on two of the biggest problems facing religion today. He has just released his fifth book in 2007.